Fair Ohs drummer Joe Ryan decides to embark on second side-project as High Hopes ; does so; first result is fuzzed-out, impossibly chill lounge soul; world rejoices. A five-song EP is out now on Suplex . [youtube J4-fZf32oNs
Signed to Roundhouse Records , this quintet fuses ambient samples, pop beats and simple, deep female vocals. Its a good mix. Oh and sometimes they throw in a violin for good measure. The repetition of 'Take Back' in the chorus of Sing for the Lonely is indeed a bit haunting. Like what ghosts do. Tenuous? Yes. Here's them performing at the Roundhouse, must be like a second home for them. A place they haunt regularly...Whatever. Click here to view the embedded video.
Starfucker Hailing from Portland, Oregon, this crassly named ensemble are clearly out to be noticed, picking their title just to see how far they can get "with a stupid name like that." Rather far, it would appear. Their 2008 track Ronald Gregory The Second is light-hearted yet intricate indie pop, perhaps the kind that Beck would be making if he bothered to make stuff again. The video is quite suitably Monty Python do pop art. Click here to view the embedded video. Released last year, Mona Vegas reveals a more [...]
Shuff-shuff-shuffling along with Weird Dreams . (via SEXBEAT ) Click here to view the embedded video.
And then, after several bleak months, summer suddenly arrived one Saturday. It's appearance was unexpected but overwhelmingly welcome, like a returning friend that you hadn't realised how much you missed. Raised on my elbows in the park, I gazed up at the spotless blue sky, a jet lazily pootling across it, and then left and right. All around me were bare arms and frisbees. Across the road, the local cafe had outdoor seating for the first time in months, as if it had woken from hibernation. It all felt like the end of long, dark tunnel, and everyone was buoyed: [...]
There's a camp cabaret tone to Filthy Boy 's music: a slightly piss-taking, outrageousness exacerbated by singer's Paraic Morrissey's determinedly deadpan voice. There's also a faint trace of Arctic Monkeys in the Peckham quartet's chirpy tones and tale-telling lyrics (although it's hard, if enjoyable, to imagine Alex Turner reciting "that's when you fuck me, fuck me hard in the arse like a superstar"). But then there's something distinctly Filthy Boy too: a wickedly-fun, wanton indie-pop style all of their own. Here is the Music Player. You need [...]
Model Staggs - Turning Ever do that thing where you're waiting for a tube, listening to musics which you just can't not move to? Ever been that person waiting for a tube, had an average / poor day at work and looking down the platform at that moron dancing, but in the real world? If you're the former, you're a dick. And the latter....dick. But today I was the former. Mainly because being a moron in public is real good fun. But also, because there's nothing better than letting your inhibitions go, and yes, OH MY GOD SHE'S [...]
This city can be so damned busy, so frenetic and frustrated and packed and pulsing, and yet sometimes you can feel utterly, hideously lonely. I had that today walking across Victoria; I realised, suddenly, almost painfully, how alone I felt. It's hard to know what to do - rather than talk to someone, my gut instinct is to hide, to burrow deeper and deeper into murky noise, like these woozy songs from rising London star Alby Daniels . Both are a sort of bleary, bedroom-based dubstep; listening to them makes me feel safely distant and immune, a musical anaesthetic [...]
We've had dream-pop, dream-house and probably dream-classical (that's actually quite a cool idea...), so why not dream folk? Here it is, courtesy of Pale Seas , once Netherlands of Southampton, now firmly Pale Seas of London. Instead of cloudy cowbells, this is more pastoral psychedelia, the traditional guitars and life-scarred vocals stretched, shimmered and stranged-up, gone eerie and epic. Imagine a freaky all-nighter involving bikesheds, haystacks, hicks and one-horse-towns and you're not far off. The below double-A side is out 5 March; pre-order it here for £3 and you get a free ticket to a Sebright Arms [...]
( Monday Music’s the one weekly blog where SOIWT abandons its London-only focus, and goes global ) RM Hubbert - Sunbeam Melts the Hour (Feat. Marion Kenny & Hanna Tuulikki) Kicking off with swaggering, staggering plucks of a rusty ol' guitar, this could easily be the soundtrack to a violent, slow-motion section in a western, the scene where we see a portrait of domestic happiness which will inevitably get smashed up. The punch-drunk, whiskeyed feel is spellbinding - and appropriate, since Hubbert is a bleary Scot. [...]
For current (free on Facebook ) mini-album, The Edits , London duo Sam Sure & Giacomo are 'repurposing' existing songs: that is to say, remixing, remaking and rebooting them with additional vocals and beats. While most tracks cover recent hits, the exception to the rule is the below edit of John Martyn 's classic drawl Go Down Easy . The new lick of musical paint renders the smoothie smoother still, combined with sunkissed hip-hop vocals which fit in nicely. I reckon the quality of the original still shines most brightly, but the invention of this [...]
Dark and devious, Jess Bryant 's folk is perfectly suited to these dank winter nights, when strangers ghost by head-down and you can't help but gaze into every yellow window. Newly signed to Red Deer Club , the London singer has a voice rich as red wine: one which captivates above cymbal clatters and dripping keys the same way a lighthouse beam illuminates a bay, the same way you feel when your lover enters the room.
photo by Alphan Nukan * Caligula is the title-track from London duo Peepholes ' latest EP, out via Upset The Rhythm . Calmer than some tunes on the record, it nevertheless ascends gradually - but unstoppably - to a psychedelic, panicked plane, a place where the sun never shines and our mortality can no longer be ignored. And yet, for all that it's fraught, there's also a beauty here: the beauty of honesty, of abandoning excuses. Picture The World In Signs plots a [...]
photo by Alphan Nukan * Caligula is the title-track from London duo Peepholes ' latest EP, out via Upset The Rhythm . Calmer than some tunes on the record, it nevertheless ascends gradually - but unstoppably - to a psychedelic, panicked plane, a place where the sun never shines and our mortality can no longer be ignored. And yet, for all that it's fraught, there's also a beauty here: the beauty of honesty, of abandoning excuses. Another new track, but not on the EP, Carnivores [...]
Ohhh this is going to get confusing, isn't it? First there was a hotly-tipped-for-2012 band from London called Zulu Winter, and now there's a hotly-tipped-for-2012 band from London called Zulu . I hoped for simplicity's sake that his new, shorter-in-name Zulu would be totally whack, but no dice: judging from Sistine Chapel ( mp3 ), they are the makers of a very classic-sounding punk, gnarled, gritty and fearsomely fast. In keeping with this retro approach, Zulu's debut, Way of the Zulu , is only available on cassette (via Stroll On Records - pre-order [...]
photo by Jenna Popoli * In the crazy snow last week, I saw a woman stop next to a shivering homeless youth, take off her coat, and unhesitatingly give it to him. She just gave it to him. For good, for keeps. And it struck me right then, near to tears, that London is a chaotic fizzing jumble of careering lights and fires, but every once in a while it all pauses, the smoke clears, and you glimpse a little slice of paradise. A bit like the spooked, spellbound electronica of Capac .
Some days everything seems possible. The toughest assignments at work feel newly surmountable, talking to that hot girl/guy isn't half as scary a proposition as usual, your back has stopped hurting and even that dreaded British Gas phone-call doesn't daunt like it normally does. Time passes with hazy abandon as you make plans with renewed zest, with re-awakened hunger. This slothful song by London fuzz-poppers Childhood reminds me of these sort of days; listening to it is the aural equivalent of floating on a lilo all afternoon in your private plunge pool, cocktails only a finger-click away. [...]
Music for days when you don't leave the house. That's how I'd describe the brooding, claustrophobic shoegaze of London sixpiece Sheen . They marry Warpaint-esque female vocals with a tone so drowsy and sedative that I'm not completely sure I'm awake; I'm not completely sure I want to be. Each tune seems less hurried than the last, and each has sudden 'moments', corners so beautiful that they make the heart pang. The haunted-sounding One Step pads along stealthily, rousing itself only for the odd cackling crest. Hey , enchantingly timid, is a lullaby where plaintive guitar plucks are slowly persuaded to greater noise by encouraging drums. And [...]
Débruit - Nigeria What? Ooh la la! C'est Débruit (that's french for 'Oh my, it's Débruit). Why am I speaking French, I hear you...think (yes, I'm inside your head now. It's warm)? Well, it's just me showing off my flair for his native tongue. Nigeria What? features some happy beats with tasty sampling, such as soukous guitar riffs akin to that Paul Simon track , where you can call him 'Al'. I'm alright Paul, I'll call you Paul. Summer Heart - I miss you ( mp3 ) [...]
While David Bowie's been busy working alongside a sexually ambiguous sponge (I mean, who isn't these days), Timothy of the band Look, Stranger! has been filling Bowie's sexy, creamy vocal shoes ('vocal shoes!?' Yes. Vocal shoes). And with their track, Following the Leader ( mp3 ), which isn't exactly far removed from a Bowie-esque sound, it has a playful and magic quality that would've been fitting for the trippy, goblin-tastic Labyrinth . Maybe the Jim Henson team could create Labyrinth 2, where some dwarves could get down to some two-step (towards the end of [...]
Some Of It Was True!
Inside "Magna Carta Holy Grail" with JAY Z + Samsung
No Age - C'mon Stimmung (not the video)
AlunaGeorge - You Know You Like It
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" (Official Audio)
CHVRCHES - Gun
Deer Tick – “The Rock”
Craziest Horse: The 15-Minute Like A Hurricane From Berlin
Escucha el ruidoso regreso de M.I.A.
Holy living fuck the new Die Antwoord video is intense
